So I've finished (mostly - still playing past the end to work out modern combat strategies) my first BtS game. I had to axe rush the Ottoman Empire, since it started on the same archipelago as I did, and I don't like sharing land. This prevented me from getting a lot of my favorite wonders (though I still managed to get the Pyramids somehow), and in general forced me to play technological catchup until almost the end (space race victory in 1992, with the runner-up having just one tech left to research).
Anyway, I have some peeves with the changes in BtS, many of which pertain to modern combat.
1) The Apostolic Palace. While it wasn't all that annoying, there were still votes coming up long after everyone had Mass Media, and after the UN was built. Isn't this thing supposed to become obsolete?
2) Air combat. It's far too easy to lose defending fighters. They should have an advantage along the lines of never (or almost never) being shot down on defense, only taking damage when they lose the fight.
3) Guided Missile. My goodness, what a horribly overpowered weapon. 100% evasion - it cannot be intercepted, ever. It does a lot more damage than air strikes, and doesn't stop at 50%. War with the AI means tons of Missile Cruisers and Submarines loaded with these suckers destroying just about every improvement you have.
4) Stealth Destroyers. Can't be seen except by other SD's. No problem with that. But they make Destroyers obsolete, yet can't see submarines. Took me a bit to figure that out.
5) Submarine attack. I had a Stealth Destroyer on top of a work boat. An enemy Submarine came and killed the work boat without touching the SD. Excuse me? Sure, I can't see it without a sub in the area, but it shouldn't be able to attack the work boat without going through the SD.
6) Air unit limits. 4 units, or 8 with an airport, seems awfully strict. Especially when your fighters are dropping like flies while on Intercept missions.
It also hampers my modern attack style, which is with a large fleet of amphibious attackers, supported by a large stack of Stealth Bombers that moves to recently captured cities to soften up the next target. At first, I thought I'd just replace SB's with the Guided Missiles, but found instead that the most practical solution was to simply build a monstrous number of Carriers and fill them with Jet Fighters. Since air units in cities are so restricted, it doesn't take long for all strike missions to be successful (with the occasional non-fatal interruption from a Mech, SAM, or [Stealth] Destroyer). Then I could use GM's to drop the defenders from 50% health down another large notch, causing pretty much every amphibious attack to >99.9% odds.
7) AI city defense. In vanilla and Warlords, the AI kept a bunch of units in cities, making capture quite a bit more difficult. Now, I've yet to see more than six defenders. Perhaps they pile up when you approach the city on land, but they're easy pickings for amphibious assault.
8) Naval stack defense. This is another thing that took a bit to understand. I have this big stack with loaded Missile Cruisers, Stealth Destroyers, Carriers, and Transports. What defends against the next attack? An empty Transport. What defends after a bunch of empty Transports are killed? Empty Carriers. What doesn't defend? Full-health Missile Cruisers with Guided Missiles on board. What also doesn't defend? Full-health Stealth Destroyers.
Now, I can see where you might like having empty ships, with less to lose, defending against an attack. But I can also see where you want your strongest ships to defend those empty ones when the latter are weaker. I've had my stack attacked by enemy Trans, which killed two empty Trans of my own. Meanwhile, several MC's and SD's were sitting idly by, any of which would have easily defeated the attacking Tran. Later, my stack was attacked after being hit with some GM's. A few empty MC's took the damage, and they were the defenders in the next attack, despite the fact that several loaded MC's were at full health. Needless to say, those damaged MC's would have been quite useful if they had been protected and allowed to heal.
On land, you don't see this. You don't see weak junk units eating up attacks, so the strong ones will remain undamaged (poised for a counter attack, perhaps). Why was this change in naval combat made? It should be the best defender, period, and only in the case of a tie, should an empty unit-carrier be used instead of a full one.
That about rounds it up, apart from one bug introduced in Warlords that remains in BtS, where unit order queues are broken when the last order ends after the unit has no moves left, and where units with no moves can't be given orders at all (they just wake up the next turn). Also, air unit stacks going to sleep instead of performing the requested action with whatever units in the stack still have moves left.
Anyway, I have some peeves with the changes in BtS, many of which pertain to modern combat.
1) The Apostolic Palace. While it wasn't all that annoying, there were still votes coming up long after everyone had Mass Media, and after the UN was built. Isn't this thing supposed to become obsolete?
2) Air combat. It's far too easy to lose defending fighters. They should have an advantage along the lines of never (or almost never) being shot down on defense, only taking damage when they lose the fight.
3) Guided Missile. My goodness, what a horribly overpowered weapon. 100% evasion - it cannot be intercepted, ever. It does a lot more damage than air strikes, and doesn't stop at 50%. War with the AI means tons of Missile Cruisers and Submarines loaded with these suckers destroying just about every improvement you have.
4) Stealth Destroyers. Can't be seen except by other SD's. No problem with that. But they make Destroyers obsolete, yet can't see submarines. Took me a bit to figure that out.
5) Submarine attack. I had a Stealth Destroyer on top of a work boat. An enemy Submarine came and killed the work boat without touching the SD. Excuse me? Sure, I can't see it without a sub in the area, but it shouldn't be able to attack the work boat without going through the SD.
6) Air unit limits. 4 units, or 8 with an airport, seems awfully strict. Especially when your fighters are dropping like flies while on Intercept missions.
It also hampers my modern attack style, which is with a large fleet of amphibious attackers, supported by a large stack of Stealth Bombers that moves to recently captured cities to soften up the next target. At first, I thought I'd just replace SB's with the Guided Missiles, but found instead that the most practical solution was to simply build a monstrous number of Carriers and fill them with Jet Fighters. Since air units in cities are so restricted, it doesn't take long for all strike missions to be successful (with the occasional non-fatal interruption from a Mech, SAM, or [Stealth] Destroyer). Then I could use GM's to drop the defenders from 50% health down another large notch, causing pretty much every amphibious attack to >99.9% odds.
7) AI city defense. In vanilla and Warlords, the AI kept a bunch of units in cities, making capture quite a bit more difficult. Now, I've yet to see more than six defenders. Perhaps they pile up when you approach the city on land, but they're easy pickings for amphibious assault.
8) Naval stack defense. This is another thing that took a bit to understand. I have this big stack with loaded Missile Cruisers, Stealth Destroyers, Carriers, and Transports. What defends against the next attack? An empty Transport. What defends after a bunch of empty Transports are killed? Empty Carriers. What doesn't defend? Full-health Missile Cruisers with Guided Missiles on board. What also doesn't defend? Full-health Stealth Destroyers.
Now, I can see where you might like having empty ships, with less to lose, defending against an attack. But I can also see where you want your strongest ships to defend those empty ones when the latter are weaker. I've had my stack attacked by enemy Trans, which killed two empty Trans of my own. Meanwhile, several MC's and SD's were sitting idly by, any of which would have easily defeated the attacking Tran. Later, my stack was attacked after being hit with some GM's. A few empty MC's took the damage, and they were the defenders in the next attack, despite the fact that several loaded MC's were at full health. Needless to say, those damaged MC's would have been quite useful if they had been protected and allowed to heal.
On land, you don't see this. You don't see weak junk units eating up attacks, so the strong ones will remain undamaged (poised for a counter attack, perhaps). Why was this change in naval combat made? It should be the best defender, period, and only in the case of a tie, should an empty unit-carrier be used instead of a full one.
That about rounds it up, apart from one bug introduced in Warlords that remains in BtS, where unit order queues are broken when the last order ends after the unit has no moves left, and where units with no moves can't be given orders at all (they just wake up the next turn). Also, air unit stacks going to sleep instead of performing the requested action with whatever units in the stack still have moves left.
